xG-9

Yeah I always found it funny with Bastila and her huge lightsabre always in hand guess she uses it so much there's no point to put it away... There's more than a couple times I thought it was funny when I had one of my female chars and a 1-handed sabre running around with Bastila and that monstrous toy of hers... Guess she likes them big... Speaking of which, that reminds me of rotj (haven't seen it for years) when R2D2 shoots Luke's lightsabre out of a compartment and Luke catches it...how cool is that?

hahahahahaha!!! Ok this entire thread is getting ... ludicrous now! But well worth a good laugh... "This person was beating this person, and that person was beating that person! This person lost only because they didn't get enough sleep the past week and was so tired they were dizzy! And this guy had a big blister on his finger and couldn't hold his sabre correctly, or he would have totally killed that person!" lol! Oh, I feel I have to add that if I was in a battle with Amidala or whatever her name is, I'd be dead for sure 'cuz I'd get killed while staring at her ass...so that's my excuse! lol

Ok, yes, yes, Jennifer Hale definately ... (that's Bastila, right?) Why hasn't anyone come up with the best voice by far in the original trilogy? James Earl Jones! "I find your lack of faith disturbing..." ... and the other hundred or so quotes I find myself muttering right now ...

Where was the "This poll is ridiculous!" option? lol... I had to vote for Bastilla because watching Anakin in the films...don't you just wish him a gorry, horrifying death? Much worse than anything Bastila could do... He should be killed with a dull spoon...not a fast, merciful weapon like a lightsabre... Bastila with a spoon...

Wow that's really interesting I never knew what Tachyons were before. (wow if they exist that'd be...pretty big) Nik, do you by chance know where I can find the solution to the formula to reach this conclusion? I can't figure this out by just going off that equation. I'm of course assuming that v^2/c^2 > 1, and that of course puts us into having to deal with imaginary numbers when we sqrt a negative number, and I was never any good with dealing with those. I'd really like to see the solution...I just hope I can follow it. ===== For those interested but going "huh?" That formula he gave up there is the relativistic mass transformation, by the way. Mo is the resting mass of an object (like say what your ship would weigh on earth) and M is what it would actually weigh at speed v. You will notice that as your speed v approaches the speed of light c, your mass goes to infinity. For those of you still in high school and calculating, say, the momentum of an object by using p=mu, you may have just realized that since mass is NOT a constant, and actually depends on velocity, that p=mu is actually wrong. The formulas you use in highschool, like p=mu, etc, are called "Newtonian" ... like Newtonian momentum. The actual formula to measure momentum is p = mov / sqrt (1 - v^2/c^2). Where mo = resting mass. (thought it might look confusing in type as "mo") If you quickly run a couple test numbers through that though, you'll notice that the answer you get is really close to p=mu until you get reasonably close to the speed of light. And when you're measuring the momentum of your car, even if you're driving at 300km/h, the two forumulas give you the same answer. There has been proof that Newton is wrong, and that Einstein is right. While it doesn't matter here on Earth, Einstein's equations have to be used for things like satelllites and space probes, unless you want your Mars lander to smash into the planet instead of landing on it. (or missing the planet entirely) Time dilation is also used to correct signals between satellites and the earth: there is enough time dilation that without using Einstein's equations to correct the signals, they get all messed up.

Whoa the screen of Prince of Persia 2 looks pretty good! ...is the kotor engine getting an overhaul for kotor 2? Or just a couple minor tweaks? If we were talking PC it'd be at least an overhaul (if not a new engine) to be called "2" or else it'd be an expansion ... but since xbox is involved ...

Several quick things. Why do people keep bringing up "star wars universe"? I'm contemplating how a real lightsabre would be possible in our universe, according to the laws of physics. While science fiction explanations are usually somewhat based on real science, ummm ... yeah ... for the purposes of builidng a real sabre your little star wars guide is a little pointless. Plasma, Plazma... Sabre, Saber ... guess it depends what country you're from, doesn't it? Just so americans realize (or realise) ENGLISH is English, not "American"... and there are variations in the language in every country it's used. To assume that a word or spelling is incorrect, or doesn't exist, because it doesn't exist in the US, is a little ignorant. No the blade wouldn't perpetuate indefinately, assuming there is a way to shape the EM field the way we want to. I am well aware the only way to do this in present day is to use a second solenoid, and if we were in fact to use only 2, again with modern technology, the blade would start out thin, get fat, and get thin again. I stated that this design for a sabre would depend on getting the EM field to do what we want without a solenoid at the far end of the blade, which may or may not be impossible... the word "impossible" has been used many times before for things such as...flying at the speed of sound. As for special relativity, all the concepts and proofs for special relativity (as far as I can remember off the top of my head) are actually fairly simple to understand and, woohoo, don't even require the use of calculas or any other higher level math. I applaud the people discussing it for thinking it through and using thought experiments, even if you reach the wrong conclusions. I don't know why they're being criticized ... I respect people that show the ability to think on their own (even if they end up wrong) much more than people that just memorize other people's work. I could explain it...but it'd be hard to do here with only words and it'd take a long time...do a google search on special relativity. And if it really turns up nothing (I'm pretty sure you'll find like a thousand sites that explain it well) then maybe I can scan pages from my notes or one of my books... but it'd be a miracle if you could follow my notes... lol PS. I will say this much because the terminology is bugging me a little. From Einstein's famous equation, E=mc^2, we know that mass and energy are, in fact, the same thing. So what happens is, as you speed up, you gain inertial energy. And since energy actually has mass, as per the above equation, you're adding all this inertial energy "mass" to mass of your ship. And General Relativity tells us (this, by the way, involves some crazy crazy math) that mass (or energy, since they're both really the same thing) distorts space-time. The more mass and energy you have, the more you distort space-time. Your ship, or whatever, doesn't "have" gravity, gravity is simply the phenemenon of mass warping space-time. Or that's the Relativistic way of looking at gravity, anyways... Particle physics and Quantum physics have a totally different way of looking at gravity... ways that I would like to say are BS but really, I don't know 'cuz I haven't spent more than a couple of seconds looking at that because, admittedly, I can't follow it at all...I don't understand what any of the damned equations are doing. lol

Same situation as A New Hope. The Rebels defeated the Death Star and celebrated their victory, but the Empire was still powerful in Empire Strikes Back. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That does seem really odd and it's crossed my mind too... I hope kotor 2 has a good explanation for this, because anything less would be a laughable, like, say..."Oh, Darth Sion's ghost came and possessed a Jedi". (sound familiar?...Lucas, Lucas...you crazy old man...) Assuming the light side ending, Revan, Bastilla, et al, has just about killed every powerful Dark Jedi, and I'm sure that after the Battle of the Star Forge, many of the remaining Dark Jedi following Malak would have returned to the Jedi, or at least abandoned the dark side...not to mention the majority of the remnants of the "Imperial Fleet" would have rejoined the Republic. How strange... The situation after ANH is completely different...the Death Star was destroyed but the entire Imperial network and infrastructure were still intact, they still controlled the majority of the galaxy, and their command structure was still in place. After kotor's light ending, the Sith are absolutely decimated. Unless, of course, the dark side ending is adopted... (what an appalling thought)

Ahhh this is a load of crap... (am I allowed to say sh*t on here?) I've never so whole-heartedly agreed with an entire thread! I was really looking forward to picking up the trilogy but this thread about the changes has just made up my mind not to. Lucas must have become senile! It's very clear what's happened now... The two new prequels have definately shown, in full bloom, failures (in Lucas) that had only started to bud in rotj. (I haven't seen rotj in a long time but immediately coming to mind...retarded little ewoks defeating Imperial forces with a bunch of sticks and stones?!?!) The two new prequels seem to have been geared completely towards kids and effects. The plots have been uninteresting, ridiculous, and completely unrealistic. (in the literary sense of realism, of course...as in realistic in the SW universe, not ours) Don't even get me started on the characters... the characters are just horrible! They're unrealistic, shallow, and their interaction sucks! In the original trilogy the viewer found themselves attached to and rooting for the characters. The interaction was genuinely interesting and added to the depth of the characters. But in the 2 prequels so far, most every major character has been so annoying and dull that we find ourselves wishing them a slow, painful, and extremely gruesome death. And as for interaction...it's like nap time when they open their mouths...wake me again when they shut up. Unfortunately it never gets to that point...some whiny little bastard or retarded alien ends up disturbing me from my rest. Can't Lucas just focus his lunacy on the 3rd prequel, creating another masterpiece of crap, and leave the original trilogy alone in all its glory?!? Damn him I was really looking forward to owning the trilogy on dvd, and now, I'm still waiting...because as far as I'm concerned, that's still not available. ...I had hoped to release my frustration on what's already been discussed but I felt I should contribute something new...so mostly it seems I was crapping about the prequels... Oh, and I swear, if a jedi turning to the dark side gets to look young again like they did in their post-darkness days after dying, while normal jedis have to look like old farts, I can't blame anakin for killing all those people...I mean hell he probably just did it to look young forever after he becomes a ghost. And don't even bring up that possession crap...! Bringing elements from the prequels into the original trilogy isn't "tying things together" ... it's more like ... movie assassination!

Actually I was hoping we would put the nuclear reactor in the handle... lol! Power would definately be a problem...I don't know how much energy we'd need...I have no idea how much power it'd take to contain the plazma...with the temp/pressure we're talking about I'm hoping that 200-500 kilowatts will do for the whole sabre? (give or take a factor of 10) But regardless that would require some sort of miniaturized nuclear reactor. (but 500 kilowatts is nothing for a nuclear reactor...so if they ever get small enough the amount of power would be easy) I don't know if there's a fission solution that would allow it to fit in the handle but it sure couldn't be a 50 million degree D-t reaction in the handle... About the 2 solenoids...that's why I was saying it's probably physically impossible to do it...because we don't want a second solenoid at the far end of the blade, and so I don't think there's any way to create the field...but learning from the past I won't say "impossible" ... I'll say improbable. But that's the one big barrier to making this possible. And then add like a thousand years of technology and maybe you can have a mini nuclear reactor in the handle, and everything else we'll need to have miniaturized. ...the Tokamak was russian? hmmm you learn something new everyday. I pretty much just knew about the one at Princeton...I just read that they apparently managed to create 510 million degrees C there. That's crazy I never knew that...that's hot enough for tritium-tritium fusion I think!... http://www.pppl.gov/about_pppl/pages/tftr.html

I'm just thinking of how you could construct a lightsabre in OUR universe... If nothing more than just for the mental exercise of it...and to point out that it's possible to create such a tool...or weapon...if someone figures out how to create this EM field that would be needed...hmmm...

Nah it'll cut just fine...though it's not really cutting. To be affected by the EM field an object would have to be fairly close to the blade and be either polarized or carry a reasonable net charge. The actual "cutting" will go something like this... as the blade approaches, say, an arm, the superheated plazma will, to use a more forum-friendly term, vaporize, part of the arm as it slides close to it. This would be long before the plazma actually touches any flesh. After the flesh has been vaporized, the EM field would affect the constituent particles that were formerly part of the arm, since the particles will be polarized. (well most of them, at least...) This isn't just my off-the-wall theory, it's stolen almost straight out of fusion reactor design, pretty cutting edge stuff. They actually use this, it's called "electromagnetic plazma confinement." The plazma they work with is at around 50 million degrees. So they needed to invent a way to store it and keep it away from...everything around it. Their solution helps out our lightsabres. Of course the sabre blade wouldn't be 50 million degrees because...aside from the obvious reasons, the hotter the plazma, the stronger your EM confinement fields will have to be. I'd say about 15,000 degrees C should do it. That's the temperature you'll need to fully ionize your plazma....that's hydrogen plazma, btw. (and it MUST be fully ionized) That should be hot enough to cut what you want...it'll even cut through Titanium alloys. And as for the databank, as we all know, I'm not talking about a starwars universe consistent lightsabre. I'm thinking of how one would actually be possible in the real world, by the laws of real-world physics. This is all very possible, and would create a lightsabre that would have pretty much all the characteristics (more or less) of the ones seen in the movies...except for one thing... I don't know if it's possible to project a strong, shaped EM field out of a handle like that...and this isn't one of those "we're using things they thought were impossible 25 years ago and was science fiction back then" things... I actually think it may be physically impossible to create an EM field like that extending out of a handle. But everything else would be "easy" after that. (except that with modern technology your lightsabre handle would be like the size of...your refridgerator...and that probably doesn't include your power source) Hmmm I might send this to one of my wackier astrophysics profs back at UBC and see if he can think of a way to create such an EM field...lol PS. Trivia question: using hydrogen plazma, which to me seems like the most practical choice, what color would the blade of the lightsabre be? (dramatically, the "Imperial March" begins to play in the background...)

I haven't seen mention of this anywhere but I swear on my first time through the game with a female character I saw this option but said no. Earlier I had turned down Carth because he was such a whiner I thought he deserved to die... Then, somewhat late in the game Juhani hits on me, and I said no because Juhani's quite nasty and her voice is very annoying (lol I'm a sympathizer of the guy who wanted to enslave her...) But now I'm quite curious to know how that plays out...and I'm not playing through that far again to find out. Talking about Carth deserving to die...my next, and probably last game for a long, long time will be as a dark side female, just so that I can kill Carth. It's plenty worth going through the game again just to kill that whining loser! I've already done male light, male dark, female light, and so I'm assuming the only things I'll not have seen before are the Carth romance and...killing Carth! :D Oh wait, I also have to take HK 47 with me this time so I can hear him say "I suggest you run while my blaster warms up, meatbags!" lol :D So, has anyone else seen this Juhani lesbian proposition, and knows how it plays out? (too bad Bastila doesn't swing both ways...lol)

well actually no hes right. the lightsaber generates heat slot of heat so if you are stabbed in the gut it would caterise the wound, thus stopping any bleeding from happening. Although if the lightsaber stabbed the stomach there would be to holes one in front and one in back that are caterized. But since the lightsaber put a hole in the stomach the stomach acids would spillout and eat through the catarized areas thus killing the victim of the stab would. So your both right. The whole process would just take awhile to happen and the stabbe could still be a threat if hes got the will to be. Or is hopped up enough on drugs that he didn't even feel/care about the stab wound. trust me about the drug thing...scary when you unload a clip into a criminals gut and he can still operate fine enough to be a major threat... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Very good reasoning. You're spot on! There would likely be very little bleeding but yes the contents of any major internal organ hit would be spilling. And I've seen some very strange things as well ... like I saw, on camera, a criminal get hit by something like 7 slugs from a shotgun and keep on running like nothing happened...go figure. And he definately did take multiple hits to the abdomnial and thoracic regions. Or remember the very recent shooting outside a california courtroom where that lawyer took about 6 shots point blank and walked around to find help...it looked like he hadn't even been hit, though I believe all the hits were to non-critical areas. So yeah I'd suppose that it's possible someone taking a stab wound to the stomach could possibly keep fighting for a while.

You're wrong. Sorry! lol you said to say that...It absolutely matters, and very very much so, how you swing one and how you attempt to block a swing. More so than with swords with real, weighted blades. You're absolutely right that with no weight in the blade (or very little) the blade would have little, or no momentum. You're also right that the blade would cut right through pretty much anything without momentum. But since the blades ARE able to stop each other, everything changes once you get to dueling. Why? Because, as you must know, if a blade strikes another blade, (for this example let's say head-on, right in the middle of the blades) the one with more momentum will win and push the other one back. And if you have far superior momentum you'll pretty much be able to "push through" the block and right into your opponent. But where does this momentum come from? Your above account seems to suggest that all the momentum in the lightsabre would come from the mass of the blade multiplied by the velocity. (how very Newtonian...) This is absolutely incorrect, esp in a Kenjutsu swing. And this has actually been my point all along. How can I illustrate this point? ... Hmmm ... ok, say you swing a bat at a baseball that's been thrown and is moving at 100 km/h. You end up hitting the ball and it flies as you'd expect. Now attach a baseball to the front of a car. Drive the car at 100km/h towards the plate. Now hit the baseball, attached to the car, with your bat. What happens? That's the idea behind a Kenjutsu swing. Imagine the sword as the ball, and your body as the car behind, pushing the ball. So your calculating the momentum of the swing based solely on the momentum of the blade is very wrong, I'm afraid. I hope that makes it clearer.

Ok it seems discussion of what a lightsabre blade would be became the topic in "How to hold a lightsabre" so I thought I'd make a new topic on it. Though this probably belongs in Gen Disc it leads off another topic in this forum so I thought I'd stick it here. Qualification: (lol) I have studied physics at the 3rd year level at UBC. Admittedly I took "For science students not intending to major in physics" physics courses, but these are surprisingly in-depth and difficult, and certainly well, well beyond the "Only for credit for students not in the faculty of science" physics courses. (for those ummm...arts students...) So in-depth, as a matter of fact, that, as a biology student at the time, I had no idea what was going on as the math (eg fourier transforms) was being performed across blackboard after blackboard of strange looking physics. Ok, on topic. All this debate about the actual properties of a lightsabre (from the "How to hold" thread) ...which is pretty funny because they don't exist. There's no way the blade could simply be light...two laser pointers don't clash when you cross beams, and they can't stop a blaster pistol. Whether blaster pistols are lasers is another good argument. Moving on, the most feasible way I can think of constructing a lightsabre blade as seen would be to create a fairly strong EM field in the shape of the blade. It would be a cylindrical field with a semi-"hollow" interior. You could then inject a super-heated plazma or such into this field, and the field would contain the plazma in the shape of a blade. (a similar process is used in experimental fusion reactors...lol the size of the machines needed and the power required is ummm...will never fit in something the size of a maglite flashlight...) A very powerful laser at the base of the handle would then fire upwards into the plazma in the blade to keep it superheated. This would allow for the clashing of blades, which would actually be from the repulsive force of the EM fields. And though I'm not sure of this, I can think of good reasons why such a blade would be capable of stopping both bullets and blaster shots. (whether blaster fire is from lasers or something else...like some sort of ion weapon) Though it is possible that the blade may be disrupted, or at least distorted by such. I won't go into this unless someone asks and I can't get a physics or engineering major to explain so I don't have to. Other properties of the blade are that it would be near-weightless but would definately interact with the surrounding air quite significantly and produce a feel to the blade (and producing a lightsabre-like sound) and it could be stopped and distorted by properly polarized, very strong EM fields or magnets, but only at very close distances. (EM force, 1 of the 4 fundamental forces in the universe, decreases strength VERY quickly with distance, and is strong only at short distances) The color of the blade would depend on the composition of the plazma, and can be affected by "impurities" in the plazma. (you might want to add these on purpose) The laser would have absolutely no consequence on the color, as you wouldn't be using a laser in the visible spectrum to heat the plazma anyways. The blade would definately glow like a movie lightsabre though, but from the superheated plazma, not the laser. And so perhaps the name "lightsabre" refers to the glow of the blade, not that the blade is a laser. (which is impossible) Feel free to add or correct me, but ideally you should have taken at least 2nd year physics, engineering (perhaps except for civil and such) or be very well self-studied and be the next coming of Einstein or Hawking. I just tend to hear a lot of ridiculous arguments whenever I post something scientific...stuff that doesn't make any sense. xG-9

I've never heard this quote from HK-47!!! Where does he say this?!? lol I love it! (see above) (edit) oh crap...it's not showing up...from the original post in this thread... where he says something like "it's not possible to destroy the master...I suggest you run while my blaster warms up, meat bags..."

Hmmm not sure if a lightsabre blade would have any weight to it. There would possibly be air resistance though which would definately give a "feel" to the blade moving through the air. As for getting power behind a swing with a weightless blade, read up on my blurb on Katana use. The power behind a Katana swing doesn't come from the speed and momentum of the sword itself. Just a guess at a figure but I'd say that roughly 90-95% of the power in a Kenjutsu, etc strike come from the technique and the form. The weight of the entire body is put into a strike, much like how in martial arts, or boxing, they tell you not to "punch with your arms" but instead that the power in a punch is supposed to start from the feet and legs and move up through the body and into the arms. In much the same way, a Katana's power comes from putting the entire force of your body behind the strike. Earlier I wrote about how an expert wielder will use a Katana with two large groves in the blade, which aside from other purposes serves to lighten the blade significantly. The reason why this is desired only by experts is that it requires perfect technique to keep the power in the swing then, whereas if you have flawed technique you'll want a "solid" blade without the groves so if you make a mistake the blade will have more momentum to make up for flaws in the technique. With perfect technique you could have a very powerful swing even without any momentum in the blade. It is for the same reason, the amount of power behind these swings, that it is pretty much a futile attempt to try to parry or block a Kenjutsu swing with a 1-handed sword. It is a combination of the swing technique and the sharpness of the Katana that leads to the Katana's infamous reputation for cutting straight through the blade of lesser quality swords.

Back off topic, what's the difference between an epee and a foil? I always thought they were the same thing...notice I previously said something to the effect of "I know something about swordmanship" ... and something obviously meaning...not enough lol. I may find myself working in Japan for a year starting in a few months and if that happens, along with all the other things that I'd hope to be able to find time to do, I really hope I find the time to take Kenjutsu for the majority of the year. (and I may be able to wait till I get back to play kotor 2, when it's a platinum hit...) My interest in swords/swordfighting began with my fascination in just how incredible the construction of real katanas are...not that I'll be able to afford one...I mean even the blade itself, which is made of 2 different types of steel, a softer inner layer to create the proper stiffness and to make the blade stronger, and a harder outer steel to give the infamous razor edge: "It depends on the smith. Shinganae is generally folded about 10 times, resulting in about a 1000 layers. Kawagane is folded anywhere from 12 to 16 times, depending on the smith and the metal he is working with, and so could have from 4000 to 65000 layers." lol I'm getting way off topic here...to momentarily get back on topic, about the grip of a lightsabre. A little experiment you can quickly do to convince yourself of the proper grip of a 2-handed sword is to grab, say, a hockey stick at one end, with both your hands right next to each other, place the other end of the stick on a desk and lean *down* on the stick, placing your weight on it. You'll notice it's hard to put much weight on the stick. Now move your hands apart a distance and try again. You'll notice you'll be able to put a lot more weight down onto the stick, and so a lot more force behind it. (and if you look at the curvature of the stick with the two grips you'll notice it bends a lot more with your hands apart) If you quickly swing it around with the two grips, you'll also realize, aside from the fact that you've just smashed a hole in your computer monitor, that with your hands apart you have a lot more control, the range of motion is increased, and you can also swing the stick around a lot faster.

So then in theory wouldn't lightsaber 1v1 combat be much like fencing? Yah, I always considered the sabers something like a katana longsword hybrid. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hmmm well since we have neither real lightsabres nor do we have force-using Jedi, it's impossible to say whether Escrime, or Fencing, would be better than...say...Kenjutsu while using a lightsabre. (quick note: the "-do" forms are usually more for art and the whole harmony martial arts thing while the "-jutsu" forms are for actual combat, eg Kendo vs Kenjustsu, Judo vs Jujutsu) But to actually make this slightly more of a mute point, both Kenjutsu and Fencing (esp with Rapiers, "fencing" swords with the wide blades, used for actual combat...that actually have a sharp edge on the blade to use) utilize both thrusting and swinging techniques. Though admittedly fencing swings (even with rapiers) are used either for deflection or to deliver non-lethal slashes mostly, when used for attack. But for whether Fencing or Kenjutsu would be better with a lightsabre, here's a few quick arguments as to why Kenjutsu *might* be better. Kenjutsu is at least as fast with the blade as fencing is, which is where one would assume the advantage would come from. (which it doesn't) Both styles are fairly mobile on their feet, so there isn't really much of a mobility advantage for either. ... and lastly, a one-handed form, especially with swords with weightless blades, would never be able to deflect, much less stop, a proper Kenjutsu swing. For this last point you either have to have studied, at least in passing, both forms, or have seen a demonstration. The closest thing to a Kenjutsu/Katana vs Fencing/Rapier demonstration would be a very limited number of demonstrations I've seen between various chinese sword styles vs a Katana wielder. Chinese swords are similar to rapiers in that they are single handed, lightweight, thrusting swords. In these demonstrations the wielders of these thrusting blades were constantly avoiding the swings and thrusts of the Katana, since there is so much force behind those attacks that it would be impossible to deflect. Their only hope was to stay out of range except for very brief spurts when they would close to attack, then they'd have to move right back out of range again. I actually think that chinese sword forms are more effective against Katana wielders than fencing would be because there is so much more mobility involved that it should give a much easier time of avoiding the Katana. (for a quick reference you can watch the newly released "Hero," except minus the many scenes with the wirework...there are a few examples in the movie, however, where there is no wirework) And of course to be constantly avoiding the swings one needs room to move away from the Kenjutsu practioner, and space isn't always plentiful. So here's a few reasons as to why Kenjutsu (some Katana practitioners may want to kill me for limiting Katana use to Kenjutsu) *may* be better with lightsabres than, say fencing, or the multitude of chinese forms. But then again, it might not. We'll never know...until we have force-using Jedi with lightsabres...

This is being nitpicky perhaps, but being a little knowledgeable about swordsmanship, it bothered me a little that my Jedi PCs never held their single bladed lightsabres properly. I won't get into actual technique because that would just be way too critical. How do I know how a lightsabre should be held since they don't exist? They should be held and used like Katanas, or Japanese swords...I will include a blurb on this at the end of this message for those who are interested in the reasoning. First, a couple definitions: the handle of a Katana is called a Tsuka, and the handguard is called the Tsuba. The Tsuka (and lightsabre handles, if you take a close look) are always *at least* about 3 fists is length. The hand on the same side of the body as the lead foot should be at the base of the Tsuka, and the other hand should be right up near the Tsuba. So if you're leading with your left foot your left hand should be at the base of the Tsuka (the handle) and your right hand up near the Tsuba (handguard) with a space of at least around a fist's length in between your two hands. In Kotor 1 I noticed PCs held their sabres with their fists right on top of each other, like they were holding a baseball bat. There are countless reasons for this, including increased motion range, increased accuracy and stability, increased control, increased speed, and greatly increased power, to name a few. --- Now for the quick blurb, for those who wonder why Lightsabres would be similar to Katanas. In theory lightsabres would have very similar properties to Katanas, or japanese samarai swords, and would be effective using a very similar technique. In many respects, a lightsabre would actually be like a "perfect" Katana: the blade would be incredibly "sharp" and have no mass. This would actually call for perfect technique. If you ever see a real Katana meant for an expert, you'll notice that there are two groves that run up the flat part of either side of the blade. These groves serve several purposes, the most important being that it lightens the blade. This results in two consquences: The sword is faster, but it is also much less forgiving. Less forgiving because, though it is faster, it is lighter and therefore carries less momentum. So with improper technique, much of the force behind the swing will be lost. (this force doesn't come from the speed of the blade, it comes from the technique behind the swing) And it isn't that a lightsabre is a beam of energy that cuts like a knife going through hot butter so doesn't need this force behind the swing...a real Katana (which, btw, run starting from about $25,000...not like the cheap $200 replicas found at your local knife store) doesn't take much of a swing to lob 1 or 2 heads off. (a single swing of the best Katanas could easily cut through 5 or 6 heads...they used to be tested on slaves) The force behind the swing is necessary, in fact, for when the Katana clashes against another Katana during battle. Just as a lightsabre clashes against another lightsabre. So, being like a "perfect" Katana with a weightless, but incredilbly "sharp" blade, Lightsabres would require perfect technique, almost exactly the same as would be employed while using a Katana. The only difference (and the same applies for Kendo swords, Shinai) is that a lightsabre wouldn't have to strike an opponent with the sharp edge of the blade first, which allows for effective use of some swings that wouldn't be possible with a Katana. (and this is the reason why Kendo isn't pure to swordfighting, but is more of an "art" form of swordsmanship ... the round blades of Kendo bamboo swords, Shinai, allows for scoring from swings that wouldn't work with a real Katana, but would work with a lightsabre) --- Ok this has become quite an essay and I'm exhausted. There's a lot left to be said, even about why Lightsabres would be used like Katana, my main point. But I'll leave it up to anyone who isn't convinced, or has more questions in general, to do their own research from here. xG-9

Just a quick suggestion for Kotor 2 on the xbox...if it isn't too late to have this put in. I haven't read anything about screen resolution for kotor 2 but I'm really hoping it's at least 720p if not 1080i. The resolution in kotor 1 resulted in horrible blocky edges in kotor 1. And since I didn't notice any slowdown or drop in framerate at all, I'd estimate that there was definately enough graphics power to spare to have made it 720p at least. I'm assuming it would be a very easy change but then again my comp sci experience is limited to first year stuff from years ago so I can't really say...

Aside from great visuals, excecution, and of course great *plots*, what made the original movie trilogy great? Something that the first two films of the new trilogy are definately lacking... Characters, characters, characters. For the most part, the original trilogy had absolutely fantastic plots, along with truly original and impressive designs, visuals, effects, etc. But that's not what tied it all together. What tied the original trilogy together were the absolutely fabulous characters that audiences developed connections with, and the *interaction* between these characters. (We really CARED about these characters...we thought they were really cool and we rooted for them: we became nervous when they found themselves in precarious situations, we laughed with them, we cheered them on, and we celebrated their successes) What's most important is the characters; they must be interesting enough, and have enough depth, that the audiences can connect with them and form a bond to them. Then after that, there has to be a certain (and high) level of interaction between the characters that is deep, entertaining, and contributes to character development. Of course this is accomplished by first concentrating on establishing the characters: their histories, their personalities, etc, then slowly but surely changing the focus to character development and character interaction. What this is leading to, of course, is that developing the KOTOR series with wholly new *main* characters with each episode would be a tremendous error: this would certainly be the case in a movie trilogy and there is absolutely no difference in a game trilogy. It would be like taking out Han Solo, Princess Leia, or even Luke Skywalker after the 1st or 2nd film in the original trilogy. By the same token, I assert that Bastila and Carth (though I must say Carth was way too much of a whiny little punk) should definately return with major roles in all sequels, with major considerations given to HK-47, Mission and Canderous, and perhaps the Ebon Hawk. (where's the washroom?!?) It is tremendously important that these characters return...most importantly Bastila, then Carth. Of key importance is that they are developed so that audiences can form real connections to them, so that we really care about them and what happens to them, as we did with Han, Leia, and even Luke. With the new trilogy (ep 1 and 2) that hasn't really happened...often I have wished painful, torturous deaths upon the main characters. In KOTOR this must be avoided, and they should strive for the same level of audience-character connection as in the original movie trilogy, which of course requires perpetuating the main characters throughout the series, and developing them extremely well. ...and yes I would definately say that there is work to be done in this area...but that abandonning (as the best example, that whiny little punk Carth) isn't the solution, but instead to stick with them and make it work. Canderous, HK and Mission definately have a lot of potential, and Bastilla is almost there. Carth needs work. The intros are over it's time to connet them to the audience. That's my 10 cents worth. xG-9